Dr. Know: Secondhand Pot Smoke

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Can you fail a pee test for pot due to secondhand smoke? I haven’t smoked in years, but my housemate does several bong hits a day, and some smoke must wind up in my lungs. I’m a substitute teacher hoping to go full-time, and I’m afraid I’ll get an offer only to flunk the drug test and get blacklisted.

—Hip-but-worried teacher

You’ve got nothing to worry about, Teach, for a couple of reasons. Relax and fire up a bowl while I lay them on you.

First, incidental exposure to pot smoke won’t make you fail a drug test unless you’re going for a job with a total zero-tolerance policy, like Olympic athlete or skipper of the Exxon Valdez. Most pre-employment drug screens permit up to 50 nanograms per milliliter of weed-related goop in your urine in order to avoid precisely the sort of false positive you’re worried about. Unless you’ve been locked in a windowless van with five snowboarders for a week, your passive ganja-sparking won’t get you anywhere near that level.

Second, where are you applying for this teaching job? If it’s with Portland Public Schools, chill—it’s well-known that most PPS teachers spend half their workday locked in the faculty lounge with a wet towel shoved under the door.

OK, maybe that’s not strictly true. But if teachers want to fire up the odd doobie on their own time (and God knows I wouldn’t blame them if they did), they’ll probably live to brag about it.